Ultimates 29, Thunderbolts 14, Nova 7

Ultimates 29
Fialkov (w) and Di Giandomenico and Ruggiero (a) and Charalampidis (c)

Reed's team only needs the one remaining Infinity Gem to finish out the gauntlet and things really should be less complicated as Tony Stark is dead and his armor seemingly under Reed's control and the Ultimates are imprisoned. Unfortunately for Reed, Tony's smart enough to have uploaded his consciousness into his network, meaning that he can hack just about anything now. Bit of a buzzkill for Reed as it allows him to take his own armor offline, mostly, instead of allowing Reed to use it and it means he can hack Reed's systems and control a suit himself. The book moves incredibly fast as Tony works his way through all of Reed's plans, culminating in a rescue of the Ultimates and the serious delay of all of Reed's work, if not the ultimate end. Meanwhile, Quicksilver has used John Storm to drill to the Earth's core to retrieve the last Infinity Gem for Kang, who he believes is his sister Wanda. As he returns with the gem, he reads through Reed's math (Pietro admits he's not smart but he's great at math because the speed he can analyze it means that he knows math well purely through repetition) and realizes that Kang's plan isn't going to end the way he thought it would and it's not anything that Wanda would ever do. She's not Wanda. Kang realizes that Quicksilver's found out and quickly catches up with him, admitting it to him before taking the gem and ending his life, giving him 30 seconds in which he sprints to Wanda's grave to give a final speech to her, pouring his heart out before he dies by her side. It's that speech that serves as a sort of narrator for this book, starting right with the beginning of the comic and ending as Pietro actually reaches the grave before starting anew out of Pietro's actual mouth. So who is Kang? The Ultimates find out as they gang up on Reed that Kang is future Sue Storm and she'll kill every one of them if they get in her way.

There is a TON happening here. Really impressive the level of climax we had here. Guys, I know this is the Ultimate universe and people die here but Tony Stark is kind of dead and Quicksilver just died. I recounted this book to my girlfriend and the fact that Quicksilver died came up and was, honestly, kind of off-handed because Tony obviously is a bigger death and she had to stop me to be like, "wait, what? Don't they stay dead over there?" I know! That's not to say it's poorly done or something, the fact that it's more off-handedly mentioned. In fact, it's very well done. It's incredibly sweet (ignoring the weird Pietro-Wanda relationship in the Ultimate universe) and it justifies a lot of his actions. He's suddenly more understandable and more helpless than conniving and kind of pure evil, as he's been shown lately. But it still fits nicely and his sentiments are very sweet and very touching. The pace of the book is great as Tony consciousness runs circles around Reed, thwarting and mocking him at every turn. Everything is fast and smart and the Sue Storm end reveal (with present Sue Storm in the room working against future Sue) is pleasantly surprising and well hidden. Solid work here. I've had some skepticisms about this Ultimates Disassembled business but this issue really straightened some worries out, giving us plenty to look forward to next time. High fives all around.

Thunderbolts 14
Soule (w) and Palo and Pallot (a) and Guru eFX (c)

Guys, I'm going to be honest and give some review-spoilers here: the three books reviewed today all get slightly surprised high fives. I could not be happier that this is true; I've had my troubles with each of these series that extended even as far as the most recent issues before these but I found myself genuinely enjoying each of these books and happy to be reading them. Let's talk about the specifics more, hm? Okay, so Thunderbolts. The change is official: Charles Soule is the new Thunderbolts writer with Daniel Way stepping aside to make way for him. I'm a Daniel Way fan; I thought his run on Deadpool was great and really helped the character along in the Marvel Universe (don't talk to me about the new one, whatever guys, I'm having fun right now) and he carried that solid Deadpool into this book. There was plenty to like about this Thunderbolts team but I wasn't falling in with the tone of the book, which wasn't particularly well-established, and the other characters didn't have too too much meat to them. Soule takes over along with artist Jeffte Palo and the tone is immediately changed. I've liked the last couple issues a bit but they were meant to tie up final plotlines. In 12, Soule's first issue, Punisher hunted down Elektra's brother. In 13, we learned about Mercy. Here, in 14, Soule is building his first set of issues. They're kind of tied-in to Infinity in that the Avengers are off-Earth here and Thanos is likely on his way, which might have an effect or might be a backdrop to our story. But Ross is keeping to his promise for the team; he built the team with the assurance to each member that they'd have resources and a team at their disposal to do things for themselves and that the team would alternate missions, one for Ross, one for another team member, one for Ross, one for another team member, and so on. So he's sticking to it. The first team member to get to choose a mission, after picking names from a ridiculous hat, is Punisher. He says that his mission is that he wants their help taking down a crime family in New York, which is followed by this nearly perfect beat (I don't often post panels in my summaries but this was too perfect to pass up. It might still make its way to panel of the week this week):

Great, right? Anyway, Punisher wants help taking out a dangerous crime family who has the support of every other crime family in New York. A success would mean crippling New York crime, potentially even by taking out tons of players, but the risk comes with the fact that every crime family in New York is willing to drop everything to defend the Paguro family. Risky business. There's another fun moment where Punisher starts to make a plan which dances around utilizing the whole team, knowing that attracting the attention of the Avengers isn't a great idea but, as soon as he learns the Avengers are off-world, he changes the plan to a full on assault.

Look, this is a really long post because I'm very happy with this change in tone and pace and even art. I liked Phil Noto's stuff but it was kind of as tone ambiguous as Way's writing. The book had funny moments but wasn't funny and it had serious moments but didn't feel that serious. This book has its own serious moments but the humor really shines. The art also gives it a lighter feel, with Jeffte Palo's more cartoony artwork giving us a really great match for the writing. Lots of great moments, genuinely fun beats and an exciting plot. I can't ask for more out of a team that I originally anticipated being incredibly fun and exciting. Full-on applause for this one.

Nova 7
Z. Wells (w) and Medina and Vlasco (a) and Curiel (c)

Nova has been given permission to keep Nova-ing but isn't yet ready to join the Avengers. Point of fact, he's not really ready to keep Nova-ing. He ignores the damage he did to the skate park in his hometown during his first arc and speeds to New York, only to be immediately accosted by angry NYPD and to crash into a more angry and more dangerous Spider-Man. Spidey curses him out for his inexperience and naivety before sending him on his way with the useful suggestions of getting a police scanner to identify real emergencies and maybe going to a city without superheroes to practice (which would be any other city on Earth, practically). Sam rushes off to do these things, using his helmet to identify some real world problems and zooming around after a failed attempt in Los Angeles (with a not-so-thinly-veiled and a bit eye-roll-worthy nod to Joss Whedon and a quick cameo by former New Warriors Justice and Speedball). He quickly learns that rushing into situations isn't the best approach (there are some neat bits where he admits to construction workers back at his skate park where he's reluctantly decided to help that firemen are better at fires than he is and that angry crowds aren't easy to talk to) and slows things down, returning to Carefree, Arizona to start small. However, Thanos is on the horizon, so don't expect him to stay small for too long.

I really enjoyed this issue. Nova sounds like the fifteen year-old he's supposed to sound like and the book wants to have a more fun feel to it, something that books that try to hard fail miserably at. Instead, it works very well here and the laughs are mostly genuine (the Joss Whedon does indeed get an eye-roll). This one's applause comes with rather a wary eye, though. I wasn't a huge fan of the Nova reboot here. First and foremost, he spins right out of the newish Ultimate Spider-Man TV show which is garbage. Still, comics don't necessarily follow TV or movies word for word so he was still jumping into an established universe. I liked the idea behind the Black Nova corps but I didn't love the story or the character particularly under Jeph Loeb. It felt strained and very cliché. Zeb Wells took over recently and got me a little more onboard, giving Nova a more genuine sounding voice and putting the character back on new ground on Earth. I've liked the work he's done and this issue is certainly no exception; in fact, I'd say it's the strongest of the series so far. But issue 10 will see another writer change on the book, replacing Wells with Gerry Duggan. Remember above, in my Thunderbolts post, when I mentioned not liking the new Deadpool book? Or every Deadpool review where I've said that? Duggan is one of the men behind that. Don't get me wrong, that certainly doesn't mean Nova is bound to cross borders I don't care for. Deadpool's a different character and Duggan's a pro, who is also, it should be mentioned, writing Deadpool alongside a stand-up comedian in Brian Posehn. Still, I'm wary of the new direction that could be coming, especially after I liked this issue so much. Hoping that Wells' stay, if nothing else, is memorable. Truly hoping for better beyond that, but I'd except a solid five issues.


Geez guys, sorry for the really long post today. I've tried to limit my number of three review posts but sometimes you have fourteen books and you can't help yourself in four days. Also, I was really impressed by these three books and really surprised at how impressed I was. Days like these make me love comics anew. Wonderful. Maybe not the best books this week (building suspense for THIS WEEK'S PICKS tomorrow) but good enough to make me excited.